Dr Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday that the United States is unlikely to eradicate Covid as with other diseases such as polio and smallpox unless Americans change their attitude toward vaccination significantly.
“It’s possible. It looks like we’re not prepared to do that and take the collective action it’s going to take,” the former Food and Drug Administration chief told Squawk Box.
‘It will require that people who have a serious virtue be vaccinated, even if they individually feel that they have a low risk of infection, because even if they have a low risk, they can still get the infection and ‘and you can not eradicate it a disease where you have a significant contingent of people who are going to keep catching and transmitting it,’ ‘he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been no cases of polio in the United States since 1979. The first vaccine for the disease – which can cause paralysis – became available in the country in 1955.
According to the CDC, it has been more than 70 years since the last natural occurrence of smallpox was recorded in the USA. In 1980, after a year-long global public health campaign involving mass vaccinations, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization called for the eradication of smallpox.
According to CDC, there will be no more routine vaccinations for smallpox. However, the agency still recommends that children receive four polio vaccine doses at different ages.
“We are eradicating things where we have very high vaccination rates, and where the vaccine is a single-use vaccine where it is completely protective for a long period of time and for life,” said Gottlieb, who sits on Pfizer’s board. one of the three Covid vaccines cleared for emergency use in the US makes the other two vaccine. Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine has been discontinued by the FDA due to cases of rare but serious blood clotting issues.
“You look at measles, smallpox, polio, we vaccinate children. It provides them with a level of protection that lasts forever or into adulthood. Therefore, we can eradicate – or largely eradicate – the diseases in communities where we are. which is very high, “Gottlieb said.” This is probably not the case for Covid in the US, he said. In addition, a “large enough” part of the adult population resists Covid vaccination and the shots are still not available to young children, he explained.
“When it’s available to children, there is now a very healthy debate in this country as to whether it will get a mandate for children to go back to school and the answer seems to be ‘no’ in the vast majority of states. is going to be, “Gottlieb said.” It does not create the configuration for the eradication of this virus. This creates a setup where we can land this virus at low levels. But there are still distribution bags. If we want to eradicate it, we have to make different decisions as a society. ‘
However, many colleges and universities in the US require Covid vaccinations for students returning for the fall semester.
Gottlieb’s comments come Friday one day after Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla made remarks that people were likely to need a third dose of Covid vaccine within a year.
The remarks renewed the conversation about the duration of the coronavirus threat, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic 13 months ago.
According to the CDC, about 24% of the population is fully vaccinated against Covid. President Joe Biden has asked states to ensure that all adults are eligible to receive the shot within the next few days.
Although millions of Americans are still being vaccinated, coronavirus cases are still on the rise in the US. The seven-day average of new infections daily was 70,484, up 7% over the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. This is better than their everyday highs earlier this year, but in line with the levels that are rising in the summer.
Some people have suggested, including Bourla, that coronavirus vaccinations could become an annual event, similar to seasonal flu. In the short term, Gottlieb said he expects this to be true.
‘It’s hard to predict what things will look like seven years from now, ten years from now with Covid and how much this infection will diminish socially, but at least for the foreseeable future you would see it as an annual … vaccination , he said.
According to Hopkins, more than 31 million cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the US since the onset of the pandemic, and at least 565,293 people in the country have died from the disease. Both cumulative cases and deaths in the US, the highest of any country in the world, account for about 20% of the total.